My technique is a little different. I put them in the program, fail them all without really even trying, then work on the stories, and then "learn" them. They come back in 3 days (like you're saying). Maybe I'll fail them. Those that fail, I work on the stories more, and then "learn" them again. I don't really worry about the % (100% that first day).

Just now, my goal is to get all 2042 into that right most box. It's a challenge.

I think the main problem is something you said in your first post. You're studying at night. There's a thing called state dependant learning that makes it easier to recall information when you're in the same mental state as when you learned it. If you study when you're tired then go to bed, when you wake up in the morning refreshed it's going to be much harder to recall the information because your mental state is widely different. I would change your time of studying before changing anything else.

Is that the same reason why I seem to play pool better when I'm drunk?

Did you learn to play pool when you're drunk? Or, it might be that you're playing pool so much when you're drunk that you actually have more hours logged in learning how to play pool drunk than learning how to play pool sober. You might have been joking, but I find this state dependant learning stuff extremely interesting.

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erlog Wrote:If you study when you're tired then go to bed, when you wake up in the morning refreshed it's going to be much harder to recall the information because your mental state is widely different.

erlog, it's true that it can help to recall some information, to explore what mental state or conditions were when the information was first encountered. It can be mental states like you say, or it could simply be music that was playing in the background.

However this is probably a minor variable compared to that of the effect of sleep.

Sufficient sleep and pauses has a very significant impact on memory retention. There's a lot of research been done on that already, just google up "effects of sleep on memory" or "memory consolidation and sleep" and you will find countless articles about the subject.

Studying late at night is perfectly ok if your hours are a little shifted, and you go to sleep late usually, you can be quite concentrated between 8pm and 12pm for example; although after midnight the best hours for studying are probably over.

I agree that studying at night doesn't necessarily mean you're less concentrated, but I still feel like mental state is something that needs to be taken into account when you plan your routines. I think many people overlook it. I wasn't saying mental state was the only thing, but it's one of the things that popped into my head when I was reading ryuujin's post about his situation.

Somewhat related, the supermemo site says that stuff that you learn right before you go to sleep will be forgotten. It also says that "learning while you sleep" doesn't work. This is a great article about how sleep affects learning.
http://supermemo.com/articles/sleep.htm